We've already taken a look at the international Moto G, and today Google surprised us with the formal announcement of a Google Play edition Moto G based on that same international hardware. I was impressed with the international Moto G and think it's a great device for shoppers who want a device that feels great in the hand, isn't overly large, but still performs very well in every day tasks.

The Google Play edition Moto G like others eschews some software features in favor of an entirely Google-derived experience. Motorola arguably has the closest to stock implementation of Android right now, but if you want something even more of an expression of Google's vision, the Google Play edition Moto G probably makes sense. Pricing for the Moto G is what you'd expect – $179 for the 8GB version and $199 for the 16GB version. There's only one hardware version, essentially the UK GSM version with quad band GSM/EDGE and quad band single carrier HSPA+ on 850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz. The handset will work on AT&T in the US and T-Mobile in markets that have WCDMA running on 1900 MHz (essentially markets that have T-Mobile LTE).

Of course the tradeoff with Google Play edition devices is that although they run the OEM's kernel and have a stock build of Android on top, it eschews the software preloads and often many of the OEMs custom additional functions. Google has listed these nicely on a support page as usual:

FM Radio

Motorola Assist

Motorola Boot Services

Motorola Camera

Moto Care/Help

Motorola Connect

Motorola Device ID

One more thing to note is that the Moto G doesn't run the Google Experience launcher, that's still exclusive to the Nexus 5. We're looking forward to getting our hands on the Moto G GPe as soon as possible and taking a closer look at what's different versus the device we've already looked at.

Yeah, especially to countries that, you know, share a border with the US! I can understand not wanting to ship overseas right away, but to exclude Canada from the GPe program? Shipping is virtually free, and we use the same cellular bands for pete's sake.

What's worse is that Motorola won't even let you buy a phone via their website, due to their stupid "exclusivity deals" with Telus (Moto G) and Rogers (Moto X). FFS, you can't get either if you're on Bell! (Okay, you can buy them outright from either company and then unlock them since all three use basically the same cell bands, but it's still a lot of extra hoops to jump through.)Reply

Standard off-contract G might even be better here. Same price, has latest version of Android and a pretty low-key skin already, Moto replaced that stock camera UI that folks complain about, and hey, who doesn't want an FM radio?Reply